Elven Lights
by Dcfan100
Summary: Elves are an ancient race, mysterious and overflowing with magic. They're also quite the jokers. AU which takes place in a vague ill-defined fantasy world. Written for the NejiTen discord Secret Santa exchange.


**Created for the Christmas Secret Santa event on the NejiTen discord server for the wonderful graciebunsart! Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday! **

_Sarutobi's Supplemental to the Races, Peoples and Other Sentient's of the Five Lands _was a decidedly small square tome, bound in brown Levantine Leather with a minimalistic emblem of a monkey's paw etched onto the cover. Barely larger than an unfurled hand, and hardly weighing more than the pommel of a steel long sword nothing about it cut an immediate impression. Yet, upon turning the cover, hearing the delightful crackle of new pages, and taking in deep heady whiffs of the smell of a new book the charm soon became quite evident. Profiled on each and every right page lay lifelike sketches and figures of beast and being alike, draped and dipped in every color from ruddy clay red to deep jungle green all detailed as though they were about to leap from their confines.

It was these meticulously crafted characterizations of races from the far corners of the world, painstakingly recreated in their native costume that first caught Tenten's eye as she strung her yew bow back over her shoulder and snapped the guide up off the ground, ignoring the myriad number of books and tools that had been strewn all around the camouflaged trap she'd laid out for wild trolls.

Casually, she set herself down on the bed of forest moss and grass, beneath the shade of some massive Eastern Greenwoods, the magical trees of her homeland made famous for their sheer size. She rested her exposed elbows in the cool, springy turf, quickly rolled her shoulders once in an effort to release the stiffness and set her head in her palms as she began to pursue to the book.

"_High Elves,_" she read aloud looking at the blurb of text that rested next to the sketch of a tall, severe, distinguished looking humanoid, his face pointed and figure cloaked almost fully in silks and scarves of crimson and tyrian purple. _"It was at the height of the Second Age, the Age of the Dawn that the world of Men and Elves collided in the Land of Fire. The men who first rested their eyes upon the magical fair folk would one day grant names to these five clans with whom they made first contact in their great ancestral forest fortresses; names that are still used today. The Senju, Uchiha, Shimura, Uzumaki and Hyuga, these are the clans who make up the High Elves. The fairest and noblest of all elven peoples." _

A crass snicker escaped her lips, devolving into light chuckling as she finished the last line and turned the page. Above her, not five feet away from her head the rope that made up the snare of her trap swung with pendulum like regularity as the summers breeze rustled the forest world overhead.

"_A settled race, the monuments, architecture and wide breadth of learning obtained by the High Elves have given them a reputation as the most learned and w-w-wisest …"_

Her voice cracked, all pretense of calm or composure gone as a fit of abject giggling overtook her. Her chest almost began heaving as her lungs struggled to keep up with her laughter. She gave up, let her head fall from her hands and let herself go rolling across the grassy forest floor. From the snare of the trap, strung up in the trees where he'd carelessly stepped minutes ago, a tired high elf watched her conniption with his arms crossed and an expression that could peel paint on his face. Gradually her howling receded as her still rolling figure found its way back to the open book.

"You done?"

He rolled his eyes as the girl held up a singular finger, motioning for him to wait while she finished the passage. Officially, yet still with some giggling she resumed making her way through the entry.

"_Though the magical aura present in most Elven groups is not immediately evident in High Elven clans they do have their own distinctive traits, the most famous of which are their ears. Years of highly selective breeding have granted High Elves, more than any other of their kind the notably long, pointed and distinguished ears for which their species has become so renowned." _

She snickered again, sitting back on the grass as with a smug look before whipping out a thin, pointed charcoal pen from the belongings on her back and hastily scribbling scholium onto the side of the page, right by the bright looking pictures.

_However, their forest senses and ability to dodge traps aren't worth beans._

Having reached the end Tenten snapped the book shut and resumed watching the visitor to her forest rock back and forth like a slow paced metronome with a hint of curiosity.

"I don't have time for this you know," he glared.

"Oh don't look so sour city boy," she grinned back, eyeing the distinctly elongated points protruding from the sides of his head as his grim visage continued glowering down at her. "At least they got the part about your ears right."

"Hysterical, I need to get going. So if you're quite finished…" the high elf droned, impressing a frown even further into his face as a squirrel on the nearby tree cautiously pushed its snout closer and closer towards his face.

Opportunity presented itself and Tenten took it. Elven feet silently began padding across the floor, noiselessly over the brambles and twigs as her curiosity got the better of her. She moved closer and closer while the furry rodent distracted her prey by poking it's way around the face of the forest intruder. Normally she wouldn't have approached with such wanton disregard, but there was something about him, something she just had to confirm for herself. With deft assurance and iron like focus she raised her hands as the distance with her prey narrowed and went straight for the ears.

In an instant the High Elf's figure spun 180 degrees so that he was now staring her straight in the eyes, arms still crossed with a glare that most sentient beings usually reserved for guilty dogs and children caught with their hands in cookie jars.

"Don't even think about it," he warned, lips pursed, and brow furrowed impatiently.

With a reluctant sigh and much effort Tenten pulled her hands away from the tempting points and threw herself back down on the forest floor as his sleepless baggy eyes continued watching her restlessly.

"Sure, sure," Tenten sang back melodically. Fishing a hunting knife from her cloth satchel bag she flung it towards the point where the snare met his leg without a second look. The elf's visage soured even further, if that was even possible as the physical realizations took hold. All that escaped his lips before he came crashing head first into the ground was a resigned sigh.

"The fairest and noblest of all elven peoples," Tenten giggled again, mood already markedly improved. She crossed her legs and rested her head in her hands once again as she watched the inverted elf try to pick himself up from the ground. She took note of the broad, open cuffs on his sleeves, dyed as green as shamrocks and embroidered with golden threads in the outline of birds.

'Alchemical symbols?' she wondered to herself. It was possible, High Elven magic was quite different from that found in the forest.

Her eyes were drawn upwards to the figure standing before her. He looked a good deal different now, much more like…well almost like the image in the picture book. A high brow, stern demeanor, all combined with the well-stitched clothes…nobility perhaps.

"Sooooo," she began trying to sound casual whilst she avoided his gaze by tossing the tome straight past his head. With one swift move his hand flew through the air and snapped it firmly between his thumb and fingers. Tenten blinked, eyes wide before letting out a low whistle. "Where were those reflexes a few minute ago?"

"I'll must take my leave now. I do apologize for disturbing your…" he stared disdainfully down at the frayed rope and amateurishly smithed wire components before spitting out "hunting excursion."

Swiftly, without another word he snatched his fallen luggage and pointed himself due East, towards the boundaries of the Ototsuki Woods and the Elvish Horizon.

"Hey c'mon, what is there further East? Just stay a moment…" a hasty hand shot up reaching out after him. The tone she took immediately dropped to conciliatory. He paused mid-gait and slowly brought his foot down to rest on the well beaten dirt road. He stood there, silently, baggage carelessly and slung over his back, a long wooden case hanging by two draw strings unhelpfully swaying back and forth, carrying the inertia of his hasty almost exit from the scene. Tenten sighed, "Look, I spend most of my day out here in the woods by myself and…I don't get many humanoid visitors out here, let alone any Elvish city folks way seeing as how we're on the edge of the world and all that."

"Well if you string all your visitors up like that I can't imagine why," he snapped derisively.

"Hey you don't look like you're in any position to make that trip," she returned just as quickly.

"High elves aren't completely bereft of magic."

"I seriously advise against this."

"Goodbye wood elf." He never even bothered to turn back to face her.

With that he stepped forward and fell on his face like a dropped sack of potatoes sending his luggage sprawling back over the path. For a second there was silence, not even the wind daring to rile the cranky looking face any further. Only his singular, distinctly annoyed grunt from ground broke the veil of silence as Tenten, for the second time that day collapsed in laughter behind him.

"High elf magic! Hey, professional tip, if you've been upside down for, lets say five minutes all the bloods gonna be in your head. Standing up that mast may not have been the best idea." she cackled.

"Kill me."

"Oh c'mon," Tenten grinned impishly as she sauntered over. Casually she reached behind her head and undid a woven clasp that held her small moss green pack to her clothes and slung a curved bow out from underneath it. With the most habitual of motions she leaned over him and extended the bow as if to poke him with. He stared back up her, eyes vacant and exhausted at the same time, thoroughly fed up with the wood elven version of tomfoolery, but resigned to the idea that there was nothing to do about it.

Suddenly, the bow paused right before his face as she dropped to her knees and looked him over with her forest eyes. His expression, an emotionless blue-blooded mask faltered for the merest of seconds as he caught the sparkle in her eyes. They were a deep confusing mix of color, alluringly rich in tone, like tiny pools of paint on an artist's easel. They appeared, light brown like farmers soil then suddenly green like the leaves of the trees when the sun shown through the canopy at high noon, then a shade of either in each eye and inexplicably both at the same time.

The forest magic of the East he surmised. These were the eyes of the ancient Eastern clans, the eyes of tree dwellers, the shadow-less hunters, who prowled battlefields as easily as they did the forest sky. She was a wood elf, one those of his species most in commune with the natural world.

"Hyuga," his face froze as he heard the sound of his name escape her lips. Her gaze was still fixated on his eyes. "So you're really are from one of the high clans huh? From those faraway forest citadels, _musgravite_, pink diamonds, lavish parties with bouquets of cinnamon wine and sweat meats?...What's such an important person like you doing all the way out here looking like he got eaten and then vomited up a particularly surly warg?"

The high elf's eyes managed to perfectly communicate all the offense he took at the statement.

"No, really. Do even the high elves, they who have everything hear the siren call of the East?" She let her voice travel off as her eyes traced his high brows, fine and arced, below his own dense thicket of space black Elvin hair. Below them lay the famous eyes, pupils that gleamed like miniature celestial stars in a manner almost hypnotic that she could see for a second why the _Supplement_ had called them the fairest. Maybe she wouldn't admit it out loud, but there was something somewhat noble about him, a certain air of leveled calm that gave him his own personal magnetism.

She looked back down at the ground and fished up _Sarutobi's Supplement _once again. By muscle memory she thumbed back to the slightly worn entry and retrieved her charcoal pen; this time writing in the margins next to the formalistic black letters about the clans:

_The features of the Hyuga branch aren't that bad to look at either. _

She shut the book, satisfied with her handiwork and paused for a second while he stirred on the forest floor, trying to pick himself up.

"I'm sure those famous eagle eyes I've heard so much about would've caught that trap on a good day. You've got more than a little head rush, you're absolutely fatigued."

"It's been a long couple of days," he returned, surprising himself with his openness towards a total stranger. He struggled up onto his knees, shakily picking up his belongings without a second glance in her direction. Tenten took a single second to consider the situation and slipped the book back into her luggage.

"Right!" she said perking up with a clap of her hands. "Come on, the Village Hidden in the Leaves isn't far from here."

"What_?_" he asked irately.

"Y'know I've never had such a rich guest in my home before." She grinned cheekily at the expression. "C'mon, woof elf magic remember? I can carry you there."

"You'll do no such thing."

"You're quite ornery for a simple traveler."

"You talk way too much to be a simple hunter."

"We're all hunters out here, maybe some of us work a little harder and perform our jobs a little better."

It might have been the fatigue working over his brain, but he couldn't help it, it was the first thing that came to his mind and she was making this too easy. For the sparsest of seconds his brain considered stopping the words on the tip of his tongue, then ready to return every bit of banter she'd thrown his way he looked back and with a blank expression retorted.

"You're saying I'm a good catch?"

The look and shade of red on her face was something he'd treasure for years to come.

"Besides, I doubt any of your compatriots have your gift of gab."

"So I'm a little chatty!" Tenten shot back, dropping the bow for a second and throwing up her arms. Her voice sounded positively enraged and her tone was demanding, but there was a smile lighting up her face. What beamed from her now seemed like forest magic. It was the aura of a forest nymph with shimmering multi colored eyes, pointed ears that arched themselves towards the back of her head instead of outwards, all beneath two buns of brown hair. He snapped himself from his reverie just in time to catch her follow up. "Is that so wrong? It's not like I'm continually talking with myself now is it?"

"Yes, and it's very lucky for you that wood elves can commune with trees."

"For Aria's sake," she snapped again in that demanding tone of hers, spinning around in an attempting to hide her embarrassingly wide smile. "Alright! Stow it oh high and mighty elf of the Hyuga clan. I can't leave you out here so you're coming with me!"

"I'll have you know I'm against this," he said amusedly.

"No this is what we're doing high elf."

She swiped an arrow of what appeared to be troll bone from her quiver, notched a sting of rope around it and feathered it with one swift motion so instinctual that she'd made it look as easy as breathing.

"Neji…" he attempted as she positioned up and let the projectile fly. The name seemed to stagger her aim, instead of piercing the air with a shrill whistling noise before disappearing into the treetops the metal arrow tip found its way into the far side of one of the massive deep wood trees. She looked abashedly back down towards him and attempted to squeak out a response.

"What?"

"Neji," he replied sternly. "My first name, pleasure to make your acquaintance."

She blinked, once, taken aback once again as it became his turn to grant her a sly, barely perceptible smile.

"Umm..hi," without any idea of what to do or say, she extended her hand before flushing red and retracting it. "Tenten! Names Tenten…pleasure to meet you."

With the swiftness and skill of a forest elf who would rather be anywhere else she notched another arrow, its shaft also reinforced with rope and let it fly into the canopy above. She grabbed the rope from the ends of both arrows and wound the cords around her newfound patient like a harness. She tugged on the rope hard enough to make sure that the arrow had embedded themselves firmly enough into the flesh of the seemingly endless arms of the trees and turned back to him.

"Since you really don't seem up to doing any climbing in these forests," she said letting him take the rope and fill in the blanks.

"When I tell you to jump…"

"This is your plan?"

"Oh hush,"

She began bounding up and down, warming her legs, moving faster until she catapulted herself vertically along the length of the trunk and towards the first solid enormous branch that protruded from the trunk of the middle aged Greenwood.

On her signal he too escaped the ground and with one leg behind him shoved against the massive body of the tree. Tenten's eyes clenched shut as she focused all her energy on grasping the ropes, eliminating the slack, and forcing the dead weight at the end to gain any sort of height, using the inertia to propel her earthborn elven friend further up into the trees. His hands managed to snag an extended tree limb, still a season too young that made unhealthy creaking noises under his weight. Tenten involuntarily blanched at the sound, as she felt the uncomfortable shaking of the tree whose hospitality she now felt like she was very much infringing on.

"Very sorry, we'll be out of your shoots shortly," she tried apologizing casually with a nervous laugh. A quick glance back down told her that from the outside her laughing apology to the face of a tree trunk had seemed less polite and had instead earned her a deadpan look and raised eyebrow. "Hey you knew we talked to trees, you have no right to look at me like that when you knew exactly what you were getting yourself into…shut up."

She decided to not give him much time to think about it as she bounded towards the next stable limb and yelled back down at him. "Jump deadweight jump!"

"I expected communion with the trees to be a somewhat more mystical process," he called up as he propelled himself once again off of the trunk and the duo prepared to repeat their acrobatic stunt.

"Don't get smart with me Hyuga!" She screamed, once again yanking on the rope and drawing him further and further into the air. "Jump!"

This was the bickering that followed them every step into the canopy, until even the gentle chattering of the forest beasts below blended with the rustling of the top forest leaves before ceasing altogether.

Finally, the pair poked their heads out from beneath the leaves as they arrived at the peak. They looked out at what seemed to be a sea of cascading green, where the rolling flat-toped trees of varying heights made the waves and the clouds in the distance made the surf.

"Sometimes I forget to just sit back and take it all in," Tenten sighed looking out at the vast expanse, bounding from her perch and bringing her feet to rest daintily on the sides of trees top most point. A giddy grin overtook her face as she pointed off excitedly in the direction he'd come from earlier that day before her speech became alarmingly fast. "See look off there in the distance, if your snow globes really aren't just for show I'd wager you could see all the way to Chikra Town, and in north you can just catch a glimpse of where our massive Greenwoods turn into pines against the slopes of the snow capped mountains, that's where out Root Cousins reside and East…ahhh the East…"

She stopped, wistful smile on her face as her eyes rested on the last horizon where all disappeared. East, the edge of the world where a great ocean that stretched on for eons began, at the end of which it was said the Land of Magic, the original home of the Elves lay.

She thumbed the _Supplement_ in her pocket, and considered pulling it out. She shook her head and withdrew her hand. She knew she could probably write the entry anyways. All elves felt the wanderlust that drew them to the beyond, and all knew that legends told of a day when they would one day disappear back across the horizon back home.

Just the idea resonated with her as it also must have with her new companion. The thought crossed her mind as she looked back down at Neji.

He too had his eyes glued East, but there was a different look about him now. His eyes appeared all at once…resolute? Well it was difficult to put into words. There was a definite aura that emanated from him now. His face, from the temples to his cheekbones glowed with what looked like old Evlish runes. His eyes were an even more stunning shade of chalk white and bore straight into the depths of the distance with all the intensity and more that she'd ever seen from one of her woodland kin. The book had mentioned something about it hadn't it? Byaku…something?

His face appeared even more vacant than usual, as if he to was consumed by thoughts of the distance, though unlike her, his eyes never deviated from their target.

"Well! That was fun! Time to move," Tenten said suddenly dropping back down onto the branch below her with a smacking noise that seemed to pop Neji from his trance. She grabbed the pairs baggage and strung it over her shoulders. "Now, hang on,"

"Wait what?" for the briefest of seconds, right near the end of the second word as she'd gripped him by the legs and hoisted him up onto her back the slightest bit on panic had crept into his voice. Yet, as soon as she propelled herself from the top branch and broke through the canopy like a cannonball the creeping tone exploded into proper hysteria.

"TENTEN!"

"Relax!" she laughed as she descended beneath the tree line and kicked off against a firm tree limb. "We're in the canopy now, this is where wood elf magic is the strongest! You can't fall here…probably."

* * *

The last embers of the sun were fast disappearing by the time they reached the village. The trees grew larger here, far taller and thicker than even the castles of the Imperial cities. Here grew the ancient collosi, their gargantuan size made possible by great preservation of the forests and the deep veins of magic that ran through a land so far East.

They leaped from one enormous branch to another before reaching, to his surprise a perfectly ordinary highway of rope bridges crisscrossing between the leviathans and connecting the trees to one another. An intricate system of sky roads that made up the infrastructure to what revealed itself to be a city in the sky, the Eastern Wood Elves Hidden Village.

The trees plumed outwards, and in every which direction at this height, creating what seemed to be numerous forking branches, most of which were large enough to be gargantuan trees in their own right. It was at one particular branch that headed southwest from one of the main boughs that Tenten stopped before. Setting her guest and their luggage down in front of the tree she stretched her arms and let out a sigh of relief.

"Home again!"

"I counted at least six moments on the way over where we both could've died."

"Hey we made great time didn't we?"

"I feel as if you're missing the point."

Tenten's only reply was a bemused upward curl of her lips as she focused on running her hands over the ivy that lay in a tangle all over the face of the massive branch. With a little coaxing the greenery itself began to shift and move of its own accord. Vines unfurled themselves, twirling off of the branch as a person sized hole began opening up before their eyes. Tenten took some pleasure in her visitor's intrigued face as she helped him to his feet and guided him in.

"The limbs have actually been hollowed out. We have a contract with the trees." She explained guiding him through the surprisingly spacious home.

He noted with some amusement that the arched walls were lined with pointed steel arrowheads of all measurements, with forge signatures from the furnaces of places he could only vaguely recall from travel guides. Other bits and pieces soon caught his eye, a few spears stashed in the corner, an iron flail hidden under the bed, and a mace or two strung up on the ceiling just waiting to collapse on some poor sap. Upon closer scrutiny it began to seem less like a house and more like…the lair of an axe murderer.

She motioned to her left without a seconds pause as she tossed the luggage towards the center of the room, offering him a seat in what seemed to be a wooden lounge sofa also covered in trimmed leaves pruned from the giants outside.

"When a Greenwood reaches maturity and its full height, by our pact with the trees we have permission to begin making our residence in them," she explained as she headed towards the far end of the house she'd cordoned off to use as a kitchen. "After we carve the areas we need we use special salves to preserve the wood inside so that the tree will last as a structure for generations to come."

Just outside, visible through a carefully carved window in the hull of the branch and a curtain of leaves created by the ivy, the sun was disappearing in earnest. The blanket of nighttime was pulled across the branches of the village, over the wooden walkways and forest spires. Tenten looked up and hurriedly fished a few objects from her counter while rushing to the windowsill. She lit a wax candle and placed it daintily on the ledge as soon a hundred other points of light all over the forest tapestry followed suit bringing a hushed illumination to the village.

Here the elven magic seemed strongest. The reflected lights barely lit the upper canopy that served as the village roof though a few mystical points of light could be clearly observed at one far corner of the ceiling. The lights flickered softly, and for a second Neji concluded that they must have been another set of candles somewhere up in the leaves. Yet, the lights continued to grow and strengthen, one second looking like licks of flame and the next looking like a host fireflies scattering outwards, multiplying and flying out in multiple directions. They soared from one end of the roof to the other, moving and flowing with each other in the outline of a sprinting forest animal before disappearing as quickly as they had come.

"Time keeping magic, the sign that it's now the hour of the doe."

"7 o'clock,"

"If you wanna be all technical about it, sure." She muttered from the kitchen, mashing a cocktail of what appeared to be herbs and plants into a tall glass. She eyeballed the mixture sternly before removing a spoon from an earthenware pot beside her dishes and letting a steady drizzle of honey fall into the mixture.

Neji watched her with half curiosity, he'd woken up that same morning with very few expectations and needless to say, a health visit in the home of a Wood Elf two hundred meters in the air was not one of them.

Beside the elongated couch on a nearby table he spied their collective jumble of luggage and his _Supplement_, that guide book he'd bought back in Imperial territory on a whim. He contemplated opening it, the nature of wood elves more intriguing to him than ever, but something told him he probably wouldn't find anything in there he didn't already know.

Wood elves were the servants of Aria, stewards of the natural world and had a reputation for being mischievous, aloof, flighty, detached for the world at large and with incurably short attention spans.

"Now here, take this," her familiar voice quite suddenly as said urgently shoved an emerald glass into his face. "If I'm right with a simple exhaustion diagnosis there's no reason you shouldn't be back up on your feet by tomorrow. It's probably nothing compared to what your High Elves make in those fancy Magicians Guilds of yours, but it works."

Neji gave her a questioning glance as he took the glass. Mischievous? Certainly seemed like it. Incredibly short attention span? Probably. Aloof and flighty? Not since he'd know her. Well, they were just stereotypes after all, but still she'd stuck to him like glue ever since they'd entered the forest. She was…amusing company, he'd admit, but still it struck him as odd.

He knew what aloof and flighty looked like, even many High Elves struck him as such. Yet, though he recognized it he could sense in her none of that airy disinterest or passive acceptance of that which struck her as odd. Rather, she was diligent, amiable, witty…he caught himself as turned to focus on the glass in front of him, pushing the mix down his throat with effort.

"You seemed awfully interested in the East didn't you?" she piped up as soon as he'd taken the glass from his lips. She jumped over onto another bed of vines and resumed her usual cross-legged position, looking at him like a young child expecting a story.

"East? Of course, we're Elves right? The elder race. We come from the East, the last horizon and someday we shall all return beyond it. Destiny…" he choked again and coughed a few times before finishing in a dry tone ".…and all that crap."

She looked at him strangely and cocked her head to one side like a dog while the soft padding of sentries, still making their nightly rounds could just be faintly heard atop her home. Neji continued.

"Don't your people have it? When the flames of the East overtake your spirit and you leave across the waters to find your destiny?"

"Oh come on," Tenten replied with an eye roll as Neji finished set the glass aside and sat up straight to face her. "Do I really have to add 'Way too philosophical' to your entry in that little book of yours?"

"So you've never thought about it?" he asked in a matter of fact accusing tone as he leaned over towards his luggage and began sifting through it.

"For you destiny is a place to end up, the paradise across the sea. But for me…" she frowned and closed her eyes as she tried to formulate a good answer. Neji smiled as he watched her try to piece her thoughts together. His looked turned flummoxed as soon as she leaned forward, far too far forward and looked him dead in the eye with her strained, onerous face. The line about short attention spans was probably true Neji mused as Tenten's eyes narrowed again and a low grumble of effort escaped her lips like the frustrated gears of her mind had been made audible.

And then, the look disappeared from her face, she unfurled her arms, reached across what little space lay between them and gave his ears a delicate squeeze.

Several instructs rushed through his head, to bat her hands away, to demand she stop, to shrink back immediately, all of which he might've done if he hadn't been preoccupied with the mystical look face in front of him and the magnificent shade of red his face was turning which he hoped, he really did, was not being illuminated by the candlelight.

"Destiny is…not where I will go and what I'll do, but rather who I meet right now and what I'll do with them," she smiled serenely as she let his ears go and returned to her cross legged position. If she had noticed his embarrassment she mercifully didn't let on. "Besides, there's still too much left for me to do before I disappear over the horizon."

The nighttime candle light slanted curiously across their faces, bathing them in shadow and giving their smiles a secretive quality. In that instant, sitting high amongst the trees in her presence the East might as well have been a million miles away.

He suppressed thoughts of the horizon with a satisfied look of his own and reached back into his luggage. He grabbed his wooden case and began removing the item inside. Tenten's eyes suddenly went wide as she saw what he was holding.

"BARD!" she shouted ecstatically as she watched a six stringed lute emerge. "I knew it!"

"For my own personal use, bards do this for a living" Neji replied with a controlled smile as he plucked the strings and began tuning the instrument. Satisfied he let his fingers strum the painted shell playing a peaceful, lilting melody; a city song oft played when overlooking the narrow streets on those rare silent nights. "Of course you realize that if you tell anyone about my skill I will deny it."

She rested her head in her hands, like she'd done when they'd met, watching the raven haired elf, eyes brimming with poise diligently plying the metal strings as dexterously as his fingers would allow. Then, without little reservation or hesitation he opened his mouth and joined in the song in a manner so natural one would think he was carrying on a conversation with the instrument, letting his gentle tenor flow with the notes until she couldn't image one without the other. The tune was foreign to her ears and his lyrics were in the airy tongue of the ancient High Elves, and yet in that moment she was enchanted.

Destiny, she mused as she watched him close his eyes and loose himself to the sound, what a funny concept.

"Have you ever considered making a life here with us at the edge of the world, making your home here in our forest hearth?" she asked as his song came to an end. She was surprised by her own forwardness, the level of attachment she'd already formed with this stranger. Whether it was forest magic, infatuation or something else she just felt too curious about him to let the night go by without posing the question. Just being their, it made her giddy with excitement that she just could not explain.

"Perhaps I could," he smiled as their eyes, shimmering pearl white and earthen toned connected, radiating silent contentment as they sat beneath that canopy of Elven lights.

The flickering flames of the candles hit the wicker and turned to wisps of smoke as fine as silken thread. Gentle dry summer breezes flew daintily through the open windows and rustled the leaves of the wooden home. Outside trees seemed to hold back the mortal world, letting only faint moonbeams of light drift in to mix and mingle with the Elven one. For that moment, nothing not the home of magic, not the hidden village, not even the horizon would intrude on their silent fellowship with one another.

In that moment their two figures melted together, and the two founds themselves pressing their lips up against one another. With silent smiles they wound their hands around each other and continued.

"We move quite quickly," she whispered jokingly.

"Elves live many years more than most mortal beings," he returned with a chuckle. "Besides, like you said, there's many things we've left to do."

And with that he bent down and kissed her on the lips once again.


End file.
